This series is another one that’s off to a fun start. I think the overall premise has a lot of potential right off the bat. The characters are likable and the art is good so at the end of the day that’s a great combo right there. We’ll se how long they’re able to keep the story fresh but at least for right now I would definitely recommend the title and look forward to reviewing it once the series has finished.
Overall 7/10
It’s time to return to the world of Sakamoto Days with this spinoff. It’s pretty cool to finally have a new comedic title to check out. So far the humor is handled well and it’s not going for the usual kind of cheap gags. I can definitely respect that and automatically that puts this one above the average title. It was a good read and hopefully they can keep this one going for a long while. I’ll have a review for the series once it ends.
Overall 7/10
This title is being heralded as the next big Black Clover title and I can see why. It’s looking like absolutely top tier content and is off to a great start. Having to fight off magical users while not having magic of your own always makes for a good premise. The art and characters are on point. I look forward to reviewing this one once it finishes!
Overall 8/10
It’s time for a really old time film about how it can be hard to escape your past at times. In this case it’s because of a private detective who really has a bone to pick with the main guy. it can definitely be rough having someone bring up the past all the time. The film works pretty well even if some of the troubles that come up feel like they could have been avoided with a little more effort from the main characters.
The film starts off with Kay heading over to prison to pick up Eddie who is just being released. Private Detective Welch advises her not to do this as it will be the biggest mistake of her life but she ignores him and the two get married. 6 years later they have a daughter named Shirley and are doing really well for themselves. Unfortunately Welch isn’t thrilled about this. He decides to bust in and try to get some dirt on the guy. He may have been fired from every spot around but he still has enough pull to walk into any office whenever he wants.
Welch is definitely the big villain of the movie but I have to give him some real credit here. The guy is absolutely unrelenting. He just keeps on moving forward and somehow the guy has a whole lot of influence. People tend to believe him and so he is really able to sabotage whoever he wants. For example, he tells Eddie’s boss that the guy is probably a crook and the one responsible for a theft so the guy fires Eddie. Just like that.
It’s definitely a shame since Eddie had been doing really well. He also helped Larry find a job so the two ex cons put their lives of crime behind them. Unfortunately that starts to make them desperate and then you have the current criminal Trigger still around to try and tempt them into the dark side. What a guy. Trigger even has a gun and everything so he definitely makes the climax real serious here. He’s more of a physical threat than Welch even if Welch is the bigger social threat.
Trigger’s your average baddie though while Welch really has charisma and personality. So I would still say that he is a lot more memorable in the end. He’s definitely not someone that you end up forgetting and he helps make the film more entertaining.
Meanwhile Shirley’s role actually isn’t all that big this time. She’s mainly here to help make the situation worse for Eddie as she gets tricked quickly with the gun and gets them into hot water a lot. She’s only a kid so I mean it’s not her fault or anything but yeah without her things would have gone way more smoothly for the main characters.
Eddie and Larry did say no to Trigger’s offer so they get props for that. In other films you see the main character get tempted to get back into the life of crime but in this case when he said no, he meant it. Always a really good idea. The characters were also just generally solid. They had good attitudes and kept their chins up even when things weren’t going well.
Meanwhile Kay was really solid for sticking with Eddie and not letting Welch get to her. Jane has less to do here but was also a very loyal partner to Larry. Stuart gets 0 points because he’s the one who was tricked by Welch into firing two of his best employees. So much for innocent until proven guilty right? This guy folded when it counted and you don’t really forget that kind of thing. Even if he apologies later it just ends up ringing hollow.
The film is very short as it’s barely over an hour so it has to move quickly. I do think that’s enough time for this kind of film though. It’s not like it’s going for some kind of really long and elaborate plot. At its core it’s a simple romance story about characters just trying to have a quiet existence. All they really want is to raise a family and have a good time. For a lot of people that’s really enough and yet they are pulled into a bunch of problems anyway.
If there’s one slight issue here it’s that nothing really happens to Welch. It just feels like he’s going to pull the same thing with a different ex-convict next time. He didn’t learn any lessons or even get harshly reprimanded. He was already fired from every agency before the film started so it’s not like he could be fired again either. Definitely a case where it feels like the film overlooked his role by the end when he should have at least gotten fined or something for misleading the police. I’m not sure what the exact crime would be for something like this but just find something to stick and hit him with it. The guy’s dangerously obsessive so he can’t be let on the loose. I would absolutely watch a spinoff film with him as the main character though because like I said, he was easily the most entertaining character around here.
Overall, The film probably should have been named after the main plot rather than Shirley being in it. She gets her classic dance number and everything but really isn’t a main focus in the film. I guess you could say she helps as motivation for Eddie staying o the straight and narrow but the title should have been something about trying to prove his innocence. Either way, it’s a solid film that’s good harmless fun. You could watch it at any point and it flows over very quickly. It’s also such an old film so it’s always fun to see how a title from the 30s plays out. I’ve seen tons of 50s films but even for me I haven’t seen a ton of 30s. That’s why there’s nothing wrong with it being simple, for all I know this may have been rather ambitious for its day.
Overall 7/10
Uh oh, I’m on a roll with the negative film reviews. You’d expect a super old 30s romance to be pretty fun and get the automatic win but that’s not the case for this one. The characters are just too unlikable so you’re actively rooting against them here. I didn’t think the heroine deserved to win and all of the characters just made such big mistakes for themselves. There’s just no way to climb back up from how far they fell.
The film starts off by introducing us to the Adams family who are really poor and down on their luck. The father has been sick for ages and while his boss continues to pay his checks, it’s not a lot of money. The mother continues to hound and berate him the whole time about how he has failed the family. Walter continues to waste his money on every kind of vice possible so he’s definitely as irresponsible as possible. Finally you have Alice who is really self conscious about the whole thing and so she is constantly lying in order to trick the people round her into thinking that she is wealthy.
She has kept these lies up for a while but then a guy named Arthur shows up and Alice likes him quite a lot. The guy is fairly wealthy and Alice really doesn’t want him to know the truth. As their relationship gets more serious though it becomes hard to hide this. Can she continue to deceive him all the way until marriage or is this relationship doomed to fall to ruins?
So right from the bat I can’t root for the romance here because a romance built on deception is absolutely not going to go well. I think it’s very difficult to come back from that. Yes, everyone starts off with a bit of a mask when the relationship first starts. That’s normal and I don’t see anything wrong with that. There’s a big difference between that kind of setup and flat out lies though. Alice is straight up lying to Arthur the whole time and about fairly massive stuff. The fact that she was lying to everybody about even mild things also shows how she completely lost the plot.
Sure you could say it’s part of her character development but the problem is that it’s clear she would have kept on lying if she wasn’t caught. This kind of plot works way better if it’s an internal decision where she decides to come clean before being forced to do so. As a result this was just not going to work and it’s really cheesy that Arthur was still okay with the whole thing. It looked really bad by the end as it was coupled with her brother being a crook and her father seemingly stealing from the company he worked for. Arthur shouldn’t have turned around so quickly.
I can appreciate a happy ending of course but it just wasn’t very realistic at all. Arthur comes across as a bit of a pushover there. I won’t fault him for being a nice guy but yeah he could have done some things differently there. I will just say I am glad that he doesn’t walk around immediately believing in the rumors though. That was nice because other guys are the opposite extreme in these films where a rumor starts and they are immediately jumping in and buying into it.
Back to the family, Walter was a particularly disgraceful character as he turned a bad situation into a worse one. Actively stealing money is just awful especially since his father is the one who recommended him for the job. So now he’s making his father out to be a liar and someone who cannot be trusted while also incriminating the whole family. In a small town like this that can be an absolute death sentence to the rest of the characters. This guy was not thinking clearly at all.
Both parents were rather bad characters as well. The mother loses a lot of points for constantly complaining about everything and giving the dad bad advice. Quitting the company that helped pay his sick expenses for months and months is crazy and then wanting to burn the bridge for some quick money? She was definitely thinking about things in the short term. Then he takes a lot of the blame for following along with the advice even when he knew it was no good. I dare say it’s almost worse when you’re in that position because you’re ignoring your conscience. At least for her you can say that she thought it was the right thing to do but since he knows that it’s wrong, that’s bad business.
They’re all just lucky that the business owner was so lenient and forgiving. That was also rather cheesy by the way. So the main characters all got off rather easily and I’m not sure that they actually learned their lessons. The weak character cast is what really hurts this film because for a romance film like this you absolutely need quality characters. Otherwise the whole thing falls apart because it’s not like you have big fight scenes or special effects to make up the difference. The writing itself was good despite the characters since I still like the old style dialogue but it’s almost impressive how the film makes all of the main characters look this bad.
Overall, Don’t use this film as any kind of reference to getting a good romance relationship going. Trust me when I say that it isn’t likely to go smoothly if you follow these steps. A good partner will be patient but when it’s someone that you only just met, you can’t really test them to this extent. The film ends up leaving you rather annoyed by the end which is the wrong feeling for a romantic comedy and so it should have either leaned harder on being a comedy to the point of parody or just made the characters more redeemable. Have Alice give some quick little lies out of nervousness which she is forced to double down on later on as opposed to going over the top and even blaming the maid when things don’t go well. She just went way too far.
Overall 4/10
This review is of the TV-14 edited version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative
It’s time for a Jackie Chan film that doesn’t really come close to hanging with most of his other films. It’s got the martial arts and parkour at times but everything about it feels basic at best. It goes through the motions like having Billy’s partner get bumped off almost immediately but the film tends to falter throughout.
The movie starts with something out of a futuristic sci-fi dystopia as people wearing weird costumes beat up a truck driver and get away with something. After that we cut to Billy and Michael who were having a normal drive and a beer when some punks showed up and try to steal Michael’s stuffed animal that he bought for his kid. They end up murdering the guy while Billy avenges him. This causes the Billy to get demoted. Things don’t get much better for him as Laura, the daughter of a big gangster is kidnapped while under his watch. Billy and his new partner Danny are sent to Hong Kong to find her and crack the case but it involves multiple gangs and big crime families. Looks like we have a conspiracy on our hands.
One of the big problems with Billy and Danny is that they mess around way too much. We have a big kidnapping case going on right here with someone who is missing and could be murdered at any moment. Yet immediately they’re going to massage parlors and messing around. Yeah you could say this has to do with their mission and they’re gathering info but lets be real, that’s not on their mind at all. They should have died there but the villains slipped up.
Now you might be thinking, James Bond would make that mistake as well right? Yeah and that’s why he has to rely on plot armor all the time. These two do more of the same the whole time and can’t keep up with the banter either. The writing is only okay here and doesn’t stack up with the average thriller either.
Now there are some positives I can say at least. The fight scenes that we get are actually pretty good. The martial arts are still on point and the choreography does not disappoint. If the film could have focused on this the whole time then there would really have been no problem. Of course that wasn’t the case and not much point worrying about what ifs.
The music is also fairly good. Some reasonably solid tracks in there. Fast paced tunes that fit with the scenes and so I don’t have any issues there. In terms of technicals, the film wasn’t bad. It was just let down by everything else. The film has to resort to fanservice because the story wasn’t strong enough which is always a massive red flag. It’s not the kind of thing that a really good film ever has to resort to. Yet this film does that more than once because it knows everyone was probably fast asleep otherwise.
The movie’s tone is also all over the place. Sometimes it is playing things seriously with a lot of danger and adventure going on and then other times it is trying to be a light hearted comedy. It tends to not handle the mix well with the characters being too goofy during a serious moment and vice versa. Again there’s no real urgency on the main duo’s part despite the fact that Laura is still out there somewhere.
Now you may be thinking, at least we’ve got a really big conspiracy here involving a lot of factions so that should keep you interested? Well, it goes in all of the most generic ways possible so that defeats the purpose. Are the Hong Kong cops corrupt as always?? Hmmmm.
Now I’m not going to say that you will see every plot point coming ahead of time or anything like that. That’s definitely not happening but you’re just not going to be all that engaged. It all starts from the top with the characters and then trickles down to every other aspect of the movie like the weak plot. It’s too bad that Michael was bumped off in the first scene because I think he would have made for a much better partner than Danny in the second half. Trust me on this, there’s just a world of difference there.
None of the villains ever get all that memorable either. For the most part it’s not like most of them can fight. We at least do have one big fighter on the villain side who gives Billy a run for his money. That ends up being a good battle and a solid way to end the film off. This is the kind of film that does have actual positives that I can point to which is good. It’s not an awful film or anything like that but it absolutely makes enough missteps where it won’t be mistaken for a good movie either. This really shouldn’t be that hard either, just avoid the fanservice and stick to a lot of fights. Have the heroes be cocky and overconfident but they still need to be focused on their mission at all times at least until they’ve rescued the heroine.
Overall, The Protector probably isn’t the best title for this film. Billy lets his partner get bumped off in the first scene and then the main heroine gets kidnapped, and then even his new partner gets kidnapped. The guy’s too busy messing around to really be protecting much of anything. Yeah Danny was usually the bad influence here but Billy wasn’t really doing anything to stop him now was he? I’ve just seen way better thrillers with this kind of kidnapping plot and pretty much all of Jackie Chan’s other films are better so in the end that doesn’t leave much for this one. I’d say to give it a skip.
Overall 4/10
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